Up the Down Rock Star

BACK IN 2004, before it was fashionable to decry the disastrous foreign policies of the Bush administration, Brit rocker Morrissey called America a “big fat pig.” Mind you, his protest song, “America Is Not the World,” was something of a mixed message in which its famously gloomy singer, who made Hollywood his home in the late 90’s, followed a slur like “You know where you can shove your hamburger” with a string of “I love you”s. But the song’s most memorable lyric is this one: “But where the president is never black, female, or gay/ And until that day, you’ve got nothing to say to me to help me believe in you.” Now that the nation has elected its first minority candidate, you’d think the Moz (as he’s known by his legion of queer-friendly fans) has found a reason to believe. And yet, in his newly released album, Years of Refusal, he sings that “only stone and steel accept my love.”

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The Gay & Lesbian Review / Worldwide (The G&LR) is a bimonthly magazine targeting an educated readership of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) men and women. Under the tagline, “a bimonthly journal of history, culture, and politics,” The G&LR publishes essays in a wide range of disciplines as well as reviews of books, movies, and plays.